Food & Water Watch: Fight like you live here

That’s what Sunoco promised Ginny and her community about the Mariner East 2 pipeline they were building through Ginny’s neighborhood near Philadelphia.

Everything would be perfectly safe, they said.

But Ginny’s community did their research and quickly found out it was far from safe.

Sunoco’s plan was to transport extremely explosive fracked liquids in these pipes, putting over 100,000 residents and 41 schools in the blast radius of a potential explosion.

These kinds of explosions have already happened on other pipelines in rural areas.

With the density of buildings in Ginny’s neighborhood, this kind of event would be catastrophic.

The reality of this potential catastrophe really set in when Sunoco laid the pipes through backyards, and started to cut numerous trees down — not just a few, like they had said.

When Sunoco started drilling, they hit an aquifer, which contaminated the water for many people in Ginny’s community.

Later, when they started testing the pipes for leaks, it appeared that the green dye to indicate leakage was showing up on Ginny’s property. This was a major red flag.

Ginny made a choice: to stand up and fight.

She rallied with her community, and turned to Food & Water Watch to help fight Sunoco.

This battle has taken many twists and turns, and the outcome is still uncertain.

But what’s important is that there is still time to stop it, both in Ginny’s community, and in other communities across the country fighting for their basic human right to clean water and a livable environment.